A huge simulation coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
has begun today with no mainstream media coverage at all.
The security exercise known as National Level
Exercise 09 (NLE 09) will last for five days and will involve
foreign security officials working in conjunction with the US
military, as well as Federal, State, Local Tribal and Private
Sector representatives.
According to a factsheet
in the recesses of the FEMA website, the agency will host National
Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) on July 27 through July 31, 2009:
“NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by
the United States government that will focus exclusively on
terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident
response and recovery,” the factsheet states. It is designated
as a Tier I National Level Exercise, or TOPOFF, which are exercises
conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise
Program (NEP), “which serves as the nation’s overarching
exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating
national level exercises,” according to FEMA.
NLE 09 “will focus on intelligence and information sharing
among intelligence and law enforcement communities, and between
international, federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private
sector participants”.
The FEMA information sheet states that the exercise involves
a scenario that begins “in the aftermath of a notional
terrorist event outside the United States, and exercise play
will center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists
to enter the United States and carry out additional attacks.
This scenario enables participating senior officials to focus
on issues related to preventing terrorist events domestically
and protecting U.S. critical infrastructure.”
The exercise will also include agencies in Britain, Mexico,
Canada and Australia, the Department of Homeland Security has
said. The Navajo Nation will also participate.
“This year the United States welcomes the participation
of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.”
The FEMA factsheet does not explain why the participation of
foreign officials is necessary, nor does it elaborate on the
roles they will play.
Canadian federal involvement was today confirmed
in a press
release attributed to "Public Safety Canada".
The Press release also noted the involvement of the United Kingdom,
Australia and Mexico.
An independent reporter from Oklahoma (or FEMA
region VI) was informed that NLE 09 is not “media friendly”
because it largely involves people looking at computer screens
in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
After asking if it would be possible to sit in
on the exercise, Andrew
W. Griffin
of Red Dirt Report was told by Brook Arbeitman,
the public information officer for the Oklahoma Office of Homeland
Security, that this was not possible and that the exercise is
mostly decompartmentalized.
Arbeitman, interestingly enough, could not answer
some more in-depth questions about NLE 09 because she is a
role player in the exercise, playing – you guessed it
– a public information officer for Oklahoma Office of
Homeland Security and as a result “is not privy”
to some of the specifics.
“We will be playing along with everybody to whatever
extent the exercise” proceeds, Arbeitman said.
(Article continues below)
According to FEMA, the Departments of Homeland
Security, Defense, Justice, and State, the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence and a broad spectrum of component agencies,
offices and commands will all participate in the exercise.
NLE 09 activities will take place at command posts,
emergency operation centers, intelligence centers and field
locations throughout the country, including federal headquarters
facilities in the Washington, D.C. area as well as facilities
in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and California.
In our previous
story on NLE 09, we noted that this exercise is
a continuation of previous simulations under FEMA and the DHS
that have involved the rounding-up and internment of American
citizens labeled as "suspected terrorists".
Under REX 84 and other operations, FEMA, in association
with 34 other federal civil departments and agencies, has consistently
trained to detain large numbers of Americans.
We also noted that several recently leaked Department
of Homeland Security, FBI, and local law enforcement documents
have stated that the focus of security operations should be
“rightwing extremists” who support the Second Amendment
and states’ rights and oppose abortion and open borders.
A huge simulation coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
has begun today with no mainstream media coverage at all.
